The truth about the agile mindset: From the psychologist

Not only executives, but also agile coaches and managers tell us the same thing over and over again: “People simply lack the right, agile mindset.”

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The truth behind the concept - how companies systematically prevent the right, agile mindset - and how to achieve the right mindset in a scientifically sound way, you will learn in this series of articles. 

Let’s start with what we mean by the right mindset or the “agile mindset.” Which definition comes closest to a “truth” here? What does agile mindset mean?

 

Agile Mindset Definition - what does that mean?

In order to come closest to a “true” definition of mindset, we will use the definition of Stanford Professor Carol Dweck’s. definition. She has established a classification that can also be applied to the agile mindset.

Dweck (2006) differentiates between the fixed and growth mindset. People who tend to have a fixed mindset assume that their creativity, intelligence and talent are fixed, i.e. unchangeable.

The logical consequence of this attitude is that: Not much is worth trying. Mistakes are bad and you make them because you shouldn’t be. Constructive criticism is useless. And so on.

On the other hand, people with a growth mindset believe in the possibility of constant personal development (Dweck, 2006). This leads to a transformation of the meaning of “effort” and “difficulty” - both are only part of the path.

The agile Growth Mindset perceives defeats as information about what one would have to do differently - and not as a diagnosis of low talent.

Dweck, 2006

The diagram (based on the visualization of Nigel Holmes) looks at the difference of the mind sets again and shows its proximity to the agile context. What does agile mindset mean? It can be conveyed like this:

It is worth mentioning that the agile mindset can of course also be defined differently. In this article for example, Mischa Ramseyer from Pragmatic Solutions the agile mindset rather as a general attitude of agility and dynamism of a startup - which automatically in a Competitive advantage ends. With regard to Carol Dweck’s definition, it must be said that it is often misunderstood.

A common misunderstanding of the “agile mindset”

Many people tend to paint the mindset “black and white.” Unjustly.

Humans are not either A or B. There is a continuum between fixed and growth mindset, in which some tend towards a fixed and others towards a growth mindset (Burnette et al., 2013).

Likewise, it can vary between areas - I can have a Fixed Mindset regarding my creativity, but a Growth Mindset about my handling of difficult customers (Dweck, 1999).

The amazing benefits of an agile mindset

So we now know how to scientifically classify an agile mindset. But is it worth striving for a growth mindset at all? Definitely. In the following I would like to explain three of the advantages.

Advantage 1: Take constructive feedback better

In 2006, (Mangels et al., 2006) researching students conducted an ambitious general education test as a part of their studies. After each exercise, they were told whether their answer was right or wrong. If something was wrong, the correct answer was explained.

The clue: at the same time the brain waves of the test subjects were measured. It was be shown that students with a growth mindset (vs. fixed mindset) showed more activity in brain areas during this feedback, that are related to corrective Feedback .

Fascinating: The agile or growth mindset leads to more activity in brain areas that are related to the characteristic “openness to feedback.”

So the growth mindset seemed to be one with higher attentiveness for constructive feedback. And indeed: when the test was carried out again, subjects with a growth mindset showed better results than those with a fixed mindset!

So the growth mindset has that Learn from the feedback relieved by paying attention to the Feedback process itself increased. The Growth Mindset sees every feedback as a learning opportunity. Uiuiui. Many could use that at work.

Advantage 2: Introverts integrated in team meetings

How do you get more introverted people in agile retrospectives agile retrospective express your opinion more often? Give them a growth mindset for their social skills. Because our mindset actually influences how we deal with social situations (Beer, 2002).

People with a growth mindset believe that they can improve their sociability and overcome their shyness. They perceive social situations as valuable opportunities to learn.

Introverts with a growth or agile mindset are perceived as socially more competent than introverts with a fixed mindset, although both are technically “equally introverted”.

Beer, 2002

It therefore seems possible to better integrate the strengths of the personality type “rather introverted” into team communication.

Advantage 3: Strengthen the error culture

How can you improve togetherness, avoid rash judgments among yourselves and thus improve error culture in a business?

Give team members a growth mindset. A fixed mindset can lead to people being misunderstood as a single undesirable behavior for who they are as a person (Dweck, Chiu, Hong, 1995).

This means that one can have a tendency to speak with prejudice (Levy, Stroessner & Dweck, 1998) and we can assume that people with a fixed mindset can punish others for who they are.

In addition, a study (Chiu, Dweck, Tong & Fu, 1997) shows the following: Students with a fixed mindset wanting to punish a professor for changing the grade in the last second.

Students with a growth mindset, on the other hand, were rather unsuccessful in doing so and aimed to educate the professor how to make better decisions in general.

error So with the growth or agile mindset not only with yourself, but also with others rather than Learning source (vs. interpreted as evidence of incompetence).

Levy, Stroessner & Dweck, 1998

This creates an atmosphere indirectly psychological safety featuring high performance teams. Accordingly, dealing more openly with mistakes is another useful by-product of the growth mindset.

Agile Mindset - Interim Conclusion

Altogether, it seems comprehensible that the growth mindset goes hand in hand with more effective learning (Kray & Haselhuhn, 2007), higher work performance (Payne, Youngcourt & Beaubien, 2007), job satisfaction and more innovative behavior (Janssen & Yperen, 2004).

The question is: Can you foster the agile mindset? The answer to this seems easy. After all, providers like Pink University offer training for the agile mindset. 

An important element in training the agile mindset can certainly be the agile retrospective. This type of team workshop is suitable in any context - whether Scrum, Kanban, OKRs or Waterfall. 

Good (!) retrospectives help to establish the agile mindset in the long term. Which is is also the goal of our team development or retrospective tool Echometer.

We are a spin-off from the Psychological Faculty of the University of Münster. Our software tool helps you to facilitate retrospectives - including psychological nudges. 

You can conduct a retrospective with our tool without anyone having to register by the way ⏫

You can open the tool directly via this button and carry out a retro on the topic of “team spirit”:

Note: This retrospective format asks for agreement with the given Health Check items on a scale.

• Appreciation: My colleagues appreciate my contribution to the team.
• Team Spirit: There is a trusting working atmosphere in our team.
• Transparency: Everyone in my team knows who is currently working on what.
• Recovery & Breaks: I have enough room for breaks in which I can draw new energy.
• Meeting culture: Our meetings are well structured, yet leave room for creativity and new ideas.
• Support: In my team, each team member passes on their individual knowledge and experience.

There are  more than 30 kickass retrospective  methods available. But for now, let’s come back to other methods to develop the agile mindset.

What remains interesting: Why do many companies prevent the development of an agile mindset?

 

The truth: How companies systematically prevent the agile mindset

Many different studies have shown that mindset training can actually work. Creating an agile mindset - it works. 

In that sense, the title of Svenja Hofert’s book “The agile mindset: developing employees, shaping the future of work” is not wrong.

As a small example:

Researchers trained the mindset of a school class and showed that students were less sick, less stressed, and better performing eight months later.

Yeager et al. (2014). You can find more examples in one Ted-Talk by Carrol Dweck.

“Wow! I want that training too.” Good, then read on.

We have, based on the work of Keating and Heslin (2015) , recorded what needs to be done to develop mindsets.

First of all: The sad and astonishing truth is that many companies would first have to work fundamentally on the culture in order to really achieve long-term positive effects on the agile mindset to achieve.

Step 1: Developing an agile mindset - at the corporate level

In 1998, two researchers manipulated (Mueller & Dweck) test subjects specifically in a study, so that afterwards half of the test subjects had a fixed and the other half had a growth mindset.

How? Quite simply: In the fixed mindset group, they told the participants that they had achieved the good results of a previous test because of their high “intelligence”.

They created the Growth Mindset group by justifying this with the “effort” of the test subjects.

And now this is where its gets interesting: The two groups were then given a more difficult task. If the test subjects failed here, those with the induced fixed mindset reported that they found the task less fun.

They also made less effort and did not last as long when it came to processing tasks.

How is the fixed mindset often induced in companies? Murphy and Dweck (2010) ask in “Genius Cultures”. According to the researchers, these are characterized by artifacts such as newsletters, speeches by top management, and by defined promotion criteria and reward systems.

In such cultures, executives often speak of “star performers”, very “talented” or “talented” employees, or “high potentials” (Michaels, Handfield-Jones, & Axelrod, 2001).

all of this supports the fixed mindset worldview:

Fixed Mindset: Some are talented, creative and intelligent from birth - and others are not.

The Enron company, for example, boast of only recruiting the smartest. At the same time, employees who belong to the worst 10% to 15% are fired.

 

Superman: Innate talent. A (beautiful) story, which unfortunately underlines the anchoring of the fixed mindset in our culture.

This leaves no doubt that employees can hardly be further developed from the management’s point of view - so the Fixed Mindset is promoted (Keating & Heslin, 2015).

 

Interim conclusion - develop agile mindset

An important step in the challenge of changing people’s mindset, must be to adapt the company’s internal and external communication.

Growth cultures are characterized by the fact that there is one collective belief in the ubiquitous possibility of further development. Corresponding signs must be made public.

More specifically, you can make the following offers, for example: peer mentoring, 360º feedback, coaching, training leave, job shadowing and job rotations.

Managers, of course, also play a key role in how culture is perceived.

 

Step 2: Developing an agile mindset - The important role of managers

A first step that managers should take: publicly celebrate substantial employee developments in all areas.

In the communication between managers and senior management, there must always be resonance:

Good employees are not good because they are smart. They are good because they work hard.

Mueller & Dweck, 1998

In general, any feedback related to who you are as a person, should be avoided. Feedback related to processes is more beneficial, that enable learning and performance improvements - i.e. on changeable things (e.g. hard work, seeking feedback, systematic planning; Cimpian, Arce, Markman, & Dweck, 2007).

In relation to this, it makes sense not to set performance goals, but learning goals (VandeWalle, 1997). You can find more about this important, but little-known division of goals in my blog article about it .

A strategic leadership style that fits well with the agile or growth mindset is described right here Amy Edmonson focuses on learning with this principle:

As managing directors, we also don’t know everything, make mistakes, and have to learn for ourselves what is the best way. There is no fixed, correct way.

Amy Edmonson

Appropriately, Edmondson recommends the corporate strategy as a hypothesis to formulate, and not as something fixed and unquestionable.

So every manager is clear that, “I (they) may doubt,” which means that  psychological safety  is promoted, and at the same time indirectly communicated to everyone that senior management is constantly developing.

It is a given that executives must first be able to lead themselves to lead their employees (# classic).

This also applies if you want to cultivate the growth mindset. If managers themselves respond to challenges and defeats with a fixed mindset, they should first work on themselves. Exercises for this can be found here in our third blog post . 

There are of course also various sources of training - for example by Svenja Hofert, the author of “Das agile Mindset”.

Finally, it should be added that it is of course not enough to change forms of communication. What is communicated externally by the company must of course also be performed.

For example, there could theoretically be a bonus for the effort put in by employees - not for their results.

 

Conclusion & “How to agile Mindset” in the team

We now know the benefits of the agile Growth Mindset. We also know that mindsets can be actively brought about, that they are trainable - although many corporate cultures prevent them at the same time.

In the next article we go one step further - and explain the surprisingly simple, scientifically validated training to specifically bring about the agile mindset in your team.

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